Shelf Life is a new art project that launched in June 2025 in the Lincolnshire Wolds. It is one of the largest-scale arts projects of its kind to come to the area, and is designed to deepen the connection between local communities and the landscape they live in.
It is one of six national artwork projects for National Landscapes called ‘Nature Calling’.
Developed through a series of workshops and conversations with young people from local secondary schools, the project also features three striking small-scale billboards with printmaking from local young people that will tour to festivals across the region this summer.
INSTAR’s ‘Shelf Life’ is an expansive artistic project for the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape. It challenges and explores the possibility for a sustainable balance between modern day farming and protecting and enhancing nature.
Using print, billboards and film, the artists open a conversation concerning pressures on natural habitats and farming within the Lincolnshire Wolds landscape for Nature Calling
“As practising naturalists and artists, we dedicate ourselves to understanding and engaging in the natural world. Working across print, installation, and moving image, this is an opportunity to amplify loss, visibility, and urgency – not in a quiet, observational way, but with impact, contrast, and immediacy” INSTAR.
Nature Calling is a new landmark arts project encouraging new audiences to better understand and connect with their local natural landscapes, improving wellbeing and inspiring a sense of belonging. Six of England’s National Landscapes have commissioned art projects and writers.
Inspired by the Lincolnshire Wolds landscape, ‘Shelf Life’ is a print-based sculptural installation and film developed by INSTAR artists Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys. ‘Shelf Life’ is formed of three elements: a large-scale billboard artwork touring ten locations within the Wolds landscape; a film featuring the artwork billboard accompanied by the voices of farmers and landowners; and three smaller-scale touring billboards created in collaboration with Lincolnshire Young people. These billboards will tour a series of Lincolnshire festivals and events from June to September.
INSTAR’s artistic approach and project foster a new connection between the local community and the local landscape. ‘Shelf Life’ was commissioned by Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape for Nature Calling, produced by Chelsey Everatt and supported by Magna Vitae. Executive producers are the National Landscape Association and Activate Performing Arts. It is supported by Arts Council England and DEFRA.
‘Shelf Life’ is informed by how the landscape appears, how it has changed, and what is missing. Observing where nature has retreated and how fields for farming have expanded, the artists have engaged with local farmers and landowners, discovering pressures on rural life, farm life and wildlife. The artists have explored this tension between agriculture and ecology by considering the systems, policies, and social demands that drive a loss of nature and biodiversity.
INSTAR has created their artwork billboard ‘Shelf Life’ to be deliberately fleeting, reimagining and repurposing traditional marketing and advertising billboards as artwork and punctuating the landscape temporarily. The billboard is a sculptural intervention, a visually disruptive presence in the rural landscape, appearing and then vanishing as commentary on the artist’s observations. The billboard’s appearances in the landscape will be made into a short film overlaid with conversations with local farmers and landowners. The title ‘Shelf Life’ reflects and plays on the lifespan of nature itself, the term for a product’s usability span and the idea of nature being ‘shelved’.
The three small-scale billboards have been developed through collaboration and conversation with young people at local secondary schools and will tour festivals during the summer. Printmaking has been used as a method of commentary through its graphic quality and as a medium often used for acts of urgent communication.
The artists have engaged approximately 70 young people living in and close to the Wolds to create the print artwork inspired by themes of hope for nature and natural habitats. The creative engagement and conversations with local young people inspired the artist’s work and the ‘Shelf Life’ project as a whole.
Nature Calling is a national arts project over six National Landscapes to inspire and connect new and existing communities with National Landscapes in England.
The project provides new ways for people to access and engage with the countryside on their doorsteps. Through six significant new artworks and writing commissions, the project inspires and improves wellbeing locally, fostering a sense of belonging to these special landscapes for more people.
The ‘Shelf Life’ film will be available to watch online. To find out more about the events programme and Nature Calling and watch the film, follow this link to the Nature Calling website.
For more information on the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape follow this link to the Lincolnshire Wolds website.
Arts project Nature Calling has now come to an end. Shelf-life, created by INSTAR artists Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys, is a series of nine temporary billboard artworks placed within the working landscape of the Lincolnshire Wolds – one of the UK’s most intensely farmed regions.
The project sparked valuable conversations with farmers about the challenges they face and the cost of restoring nature.
These billboards toured the Wolds and surrounding areas in Summer 2025, visiting 12 locations and reaching nearly 25,000 people online and in person.
You can now view the touring billboards at the Sea View Colonnade, Sutton-on-Sea where they will be on exhibition until early Spring 2026.
